An Insider View of Iowa GOP Politics by former SCC Member David Chung

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Monthly Archives: September 2010

This is not a political post. I have been busy recently with a new job and getting used to not being on the road every other week, so blogging has been put on the back burner. I hope to find time in the next few weeks to get back into the swing of things.(I took this photo in spring of 2001, whenever I see it it reminds me of 9/11.)

I just read my friend Emma Nemecek’s personal story about 9-11 in the Cedar
Rapids Gazette. I had no idea what she had gone through on that day. (Emma, if you are reading this, I am praying for you today).

On 9/11, I was a road warrior on my way to earning a million frequent flier miles and 1000 hotel nights. I was in Denver on business and was getting ready to go to my client’s office. As I was watching the news, I saw the pictures of the first tower burning. Over the next several minutes. I was glued to the TV as I saw the second plane hit the twin towers.

I immediately called my wife an had her turn on the TV. In the meantime my phone and email began heating up. friends and family knew I was a business traveler and I often made the circuit of NY, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta. I had just been in Manhattan the week before at the now destroyed Deutsche Bank building and several of the people I had worked with had offices in the World Trade Center. I remember checking in with my colleagues who were also on the road to make sure that no one was in New York that week.

By the end of the week, flights were just beginning to start up again, so I kept my rental car and drove home from Colorado. When I got back all I wanted to do was hug my wife and kids. As a result of the events of that day, my son returned two days ago from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne — he’s at Fort Bragg now, but I’d like to give him a hug too.